54 WILSON 



ART, C 



The late Professor J. C. Maxwell (whose early death is ever a fresh 

 grief to science) devoted thirteen pages of the fourth edition of his 

 'Treatise on Heat' to the elucidation and application of these construc- 

 tions; and it is understood that he embodied in a visible model the 

 equations in which Professor Gibbs expressed his strange surface. In a 

 lecture delivered before the Chemical Society of London, Professor 

 Maxwell gave publicly the endorsement of his great name to the merits 

 of these researches which we are now met to honor. He says: 'I must 

 not, however, omit to mention a most important American contribu- 

 tion to this part of thermo-dynamics by Professor Willard Gibbs, of 

 Yale College, U. S., who has given us a remarkably simple and thor- 

 oughly satisfactory method of representing the relations of the different 

 states of matter, by means of a model. By means of this model, prob- 

 lems which had long resisted the efforts of myself and others may be 

 solved at once.' 



"It is now my pleasant duty to present, in the name of the Academy 

 and with their approving voice, the gold and silver medals to the Re- 

 cording Secretary, Professor Trowbridge, who has been commissioned 

 by Professor Gibbs to represent him on this occasion. I cannot but 

 think that if Count Rumford were living, he would regard with peculiar 

 pleasure this award. For the researches of Professor Gibbs are the 

 consummate flower and fruit of seeds planted by Rumford himself, 

 though in an unpromising soil, almost a century ago. In transmitting 

 these medals to Professor Gibbs, by which the Academy desires to 

 honor and to crown his profound scientific work, be pleased to assure 

 him of my warm congratulations and the felicitations of all the Fellows 

 of the Academy, here assembled to administer Count Rumford's 

 Trust." 



In reply to the President's address, the Recording Secretary then 

 read the following letter from Professor Gibbs :— 



"To THE American Academy of Arts and Sciences: — 



"Gentlemen, — Regretting that I am unable to be present at the meet- 

 ing to which I have been invited by your President, I desire to express 

 my appreciation of the very distinguished honor which you have 

 thought fit to confer upon me. This mark of approbation of my treat- 

 ment of questions in thermo-dynamics is the more gratifying, as the 

 value of theoretical investigation is more difficult to estimate than the 

 results obtained in other fields of labor. One of the principal objects 

 of theoretical research in any department of knowledge is to find the 

 point of view from which the subject appears in its greatest simplicity. 

 The success of the investigations in this respect is a matter on which 



